Are you cocking your wrists to hold on? Typically I find that anyone who holds them this way would be better served with a ski bend bar. The athletes who seem to prefer the S bends will typically hold them with a more neutral wrist position so they aren't uncomfortable.

Not sure if this is the correct thing to do, but a few months ago I rotated my t2+s inward at about a 45 degree angle. The difference for me was unbelievable. It puts my wrist in a very natural, un-strained and relaxed position. I also have them rotated upward slightly, maybe 5 degrees from horizontal. The net effect is that my wrists are basically naturally in line with the rest of my arm up to my elbows. Hope this helps.

gsmacleod - 2013-04-07 6:04 PM Are you cocking your wrists to hold on? Typically I find that anyone who holds them this way would be better served with a ski bend bar. The athletes who seem to prefer the S bends will typically hold them with a more neutral wrist position so they aren't uncomfortable. Shane

Right, I love S-bends and don't cock my wrists like some show in pictures. The bar runs diagonally across my palm instead of straight across with a large wrist bend.

As Shane said, most people don't hold the S-bends as shown in the x-ray from Tom. In fact, anybody who does will probably be pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly. I'd go so far as to say that was a staged x-ray to try to make a point, not an x-ray of someone who uses s-bends on a regular basis.

I also have mine angled inwards at about a 45 deg angle as another poster said, and hold them with a more neutral wrist angle. Try relaxing a bit with your hands/wrists when riding instead of having a death-grip on the bars. That should help a lot.

I rode with s-bends all of last year and I found that they are awesome for anything shorter than 30 miles. On longer rides my shoulders would start to hurt and had to get off the aero bars to relieve the discomfort. Switched to ski bends this year and they are a lot more comfortable, but you lose a little bit of the aero advantage with them. But to me it was worth it.

Some time ago, Tom Demerly had a post here with xrays showing the wrist position with s-bend and ski jump aero bars. Just looking at the s-bend images made my wrists hurt.

In addition to the fact that I can't believe that anyone exposed themselves to several x-rays for not good reason, the images do not show how those who use s-bends tend to grip the bars. Rather than cocking one's wrists at an awkward angle, the wrist can be held in a neutral position quite comfortably (for some).

Here's a picture of my first position with s-bends; I've since angled the bars up more toward my face but you can see that my wrist is in a pretty relaxed position:

Switched to ski bends this year and they are a lot more comfortable, but you lose a little bit of the aero advantage with them. But to me it was worth it.

This is not necessarily true; some will be more aero with straight extensions, some will be more aero with ski bends. It is a little more complex than simply what looks more aero and requires some careful testing in order to determine what setup will be most aero (and then should still be informed but what is at least sustainable for the race distance).